Seems like yesterday I bought my first Zorro Aggravators, Storm Bass Hogs, Okiebugs, and Fleck Weedwaders, clipping coupons out of Bassmaster Magazine. Two lures, a patch, and a catalog for $5.95 was a tempting deal for a budding basshead, even if it meant skipping lunch for a couple days.

Those spinnerbaits worked so well, I couldn’t imagine improvements. But then came Northland Reed Runners, Nichols Pulsators, and more. Finally, Terminator raised the bar with nickel-titanium wire. Today a new crop of blades has arrived.

As with earlier developments, not much is revolutionary. Basic spinnerbait design seems immutable, something the bass themselves have agreed works. But tweaking shapes and materials, along with new colors and blade designs, gives anglers new options that can mean extra bass.

Heavy Metal

Early on, anglers wrapped lead sinkers around the hookshaft to achieve extra weight. Weighted spinnerbaits can be cast far to cover expanses of grass or rock. Speed-reeling, a topnotch trigger for big smallmouths in clear open water, was possible when this hefty keel was added, as the lure won’t roll. Meanwhile, Japanese spinnerbait makers had been building finesse models, using a fish-shaped body that was longer than standard bullet-style spinnerbaits without adding bulk. Their central weight balance also means a straight retrieve at any speed. War Eagle’s Screamin Eagle Models adopt this concept—compact, 1/4-ounce size but weighing 1/2 ounce, great for burning the flats or deep slow-rolling.

Use of tungsten now allows manufacturers to build heavy but compact heads, as this metal is nearly twice as dense as lead. Terminator built its Custom Tungsten Series with naturalistic fish-shaped heads. Their density allows long, accurate casts, and the compact frame is an advantage in many situations.

Success of the Custom Tungsten Series led Terminator to add the 1-ounce T-1 Series Spinnerbait, built on a normal-sized nickel-titanium wire frame but with an elongated head for extra heft. Designed with input from California pro Skeet Reese, it’s meant to fish deep ledges or timber in clear reservoirs. But it also excels for making long casts and for slow-rolling through thinning grassbeds in fall, when lunkers wolf big blades.

It’s also a good choice for fast water in rivers and reservoir tailraces. Think Wilson and Wheeler dams. Meanwhile, the Japanese company Kanji International built the Zen X-Metal line with intricately painted tungsten heads and matching skirts, holographic blades, and a trailer clip to secure a plastic trailer.

Blade Design

Time was, one could choose among Colorado, willowleaf, and Indiana blades. Next came oval designs, some with a horizontal bevel of the “turtleback” blade, also called a Tennessee blade in some quarters. And Terminator added the more angular Oklahoma blade.

Jack Tibbs of StrikeZone Lures offers a new V-Blade, which looks like you cut a slice out of an Indiana. In addition to changing underwater vibration, the V-Blade’s action is more erratic, as the two blade tips flash back and forth when retrieved steadily. When it hits something or is paused, the blade reacts wildly. V-Blade models are available in tandem with a small Colorado blade in the Edgebuster Shallow Series, and also solo on a 3/4-ounce edition meant for deep spinnerbaiting on ledges and deep flats in early spring.

On Lake Eufaula, Alabama, and other southeastern reservoirs, anglers and guides have also had success with StrikeZone’s Ghost Blade, shaped like a big #6 Colorado but made of clear or color-tinted plastic. Matched with a small metal Colorado in front to provide a bit of flash, the big plastic blade creates major vibrations but far less flash than a big metal blade would produce.

Perhaps the wildest new blade design comes from Terminator, who relied on the savvy of Arkansas pro Rob Kilby to build a new lure called the Hybrid Blade. Seems that Kilby and others had been cutting and bending scrap aluminum into unique blade shapes to produce different vibrations. Kilby used handmade versions of this shoehorn-like blade to take checks at tournaments across the country. “It’s best around grass or other thick cover,” he notes. “You can work it on top like a buzzbait, drop it down and fish through cover, or bulge the surface, a deadly fall technique wherever bass feed on gizzard shad.”

Colors

Not surprisingly, color options have grown with new technologies for applying paints and dyes. You can’t miss the deluge of red stuff in the fishing market, and the trend has not bypassed spinnerbaits.

In their ICON Series, Stanley Jigs has the Hot Flash Bloodspot models with red hooks and bright contrasting skirts. Persuader American’s Bleeding Minnow Series has Mustad Ultra Point red hooks and a red Colorado or willowleaf blade on their tandem models. Their Nature Scales skirts are white with red trim and their white heads have big red eyes. Falcon Lures’ Big Eyez Series also incorporates large red eyes on the spinnerbait head as an attractor.

Terminator’s Red Series has a red hook, and one side of the small Colorado on their tandem spinnerbaits is red, the other metallic. The Talon Super Stainless Red Series from Leadhead Lures adds red hooks. StrikeZone Lures has the Blood Blade, with a reddish hue that merges into gold. And Strike King’s Premier Elite Series has red hooks and a small red blade tab, rigged on the split ring holding the trailing willowleaf blade.

In its Texas Two-Step line, Leadhead Lures offers an array of tandem willowleafs painted on one side and metallic on the other, providing versatility and an entirely new type of flash. A special poly-coating seals the paint to avoid chipping. Li’l Hustler‘s Escort Series has some spectacular new blade finishes, which match head and skirt colors for a unique look. In a different approach to mixing and matching colors, Team Supreme offers 50/50 blades in several spinnerbait styles, gold on the top half and silver on the other, to cover a variety of sun and shade conditions and readily match bass preferences.

Mini Spinners

Though some models are meant for crappie and others for pond fishing, mini-spinnerbaits can be deadly in early spring when largemouths first move into shallow areas but aren’t yet feeding much. They also work anytime the bite is tough and you need a couple fish, as well as in late fall when water temperatures fall below 50°F.

Talon offers the Sac-A-Lait Plus, a single-blade model in an array of colors, with choices of Colorado, Indiana, or willowleaf blades. BOOYAH Bait Company has the Pond Magic, a 3/16-ounce tandem edition in a variety of configurations. In their popular Leverage Series, McGuinness Fishing Products has added the 3/16-ounce Lil’ Leverage. And Strike King has the Redeye Mini-King, an 1/8-ouncer.

Multi Blades

Strike King’s Quad Shad initiated the trend of baits with more than 2 blades, stacking 4 on the shaft with options in French, Colorado, and willowleaf blades. These flashy lures are designed to imitate a small school of shad. They’re favorites for river fishing from the Upper Mississippi to the Arkansas River. Blade size and spacing, as well as shaft length and angle, are critical in these lures, so all blades spin smoothly.

Recent options include Persuader’s Super Quad, with 4 willowleaf blades in 5 color combinations in 3/8- and 1/2-ounce sizes. In the Big Eyez Series, Falcon Lures offers a new Triple Willow model with a mix of silver and gold blades. Hart Tackle’s novel X2 uses two arms to support four blades.

Drop Spinners

Putting a blade below a jighead isn’t new. Joe Hall of Blakemore has sold untold millions of Roadrunners. But until recently, upside-down spinnerbaits were mainly sized for crappie. Then, western bass whiz Aaron Martens used what he called a horsey-head jig to garner several top finishes, and the design has been picked up by TTI/Blakemore. The Rollin’ Runner is available in 1/4- and 3/8-ounce weights. Impale any fluke-style softbait on the double-barbed shank and you’re ready to fish.

The Fish Head Spin from Sworming Hornet Lures, brainchild of Rick Steckelberg, has a longer history, developed in stages over several years. The lure’s head is formed like a shad and balanced to run with the blade parallel to the hook. Hornet colors match those of Zoom Flukes and feature SPRO or Sampo swivels for free-spinning blades. Mustad Ultra Point hooks resist dulling in rough cover, an important feature since the hook isn’t protected by an arm and blade as in classic spinnerbaits. Steckelberg recommends working a Sworming Hornet over deep flats early in the Prespawn Period and around brushpiles and timber during summer. Reel slowly and steadily, with an occasional twitch.

These lures are versatile, nabbing schooling bass near the surface and working deep ledges beyond the range of crankbaits. Aaron Martens fishes horsey-heads along bridge pilings in summer and fall and through deep, standing timber during winter. He favors a super-slow retrieve for both scenarios. They promise good things when fished across reefs and rocky flats of the Great Lakes and northern natural lakes for big smallies.

Bryan Russell of Genesis Lures has taken a different tack in spinner-softbait combos. His Fx Spinner Hooks include a patented hook design, with screw-style lure keeper at the eye, a lead body at the hook bend, and a spinner blade on a swivel below. Several sizes of Colorado and willowleaf combos, as well as hook sizes, are available.

He rigs a fluke-style bait on the keeper, texposing the hook on top of the softbait. In-Fisherman contributor Gregg Meyer reports success on several species with these rigs, and I’ve made good catches of river smallmouths on the Fx. Russell says they’ve been hot sellers at Lake Fork, where anglers wind them slowly among deep timber and stumps, or along submerged roadbeds.

Another novel rigging that places a spinner at the tail is the Bladerunner from Lakeview Lures. Johnny D. White developed this bait for fishing deep smallmouths in Kentucky and Tennessee. He offers a 1/8-ounce model for crappie and Bladerunners up to 3/4 ounce for working deep with large tubes. The jighead slides into a tube and the Colorado blade trails as a stabilizer and attractor.

Meanwhile, in Nebraska, Al Patterson of ReelBait Tackle Company designed the Flasher as a walleye lure but has found it deadly on bass, as well. Available in long- and short-shank hooks to match various plastics, it features a balanced jighead that holds the bait horizontal, and it also glides over rocks easily. Flashers have a trailing willowleaf blade in weights from 1/8 to 3/4 ounce.

The E-Chip Advantage

Cliff Liddy of Persuader American Angling has added one more dimension to spinnerbait attraction, setting an E-Chip onto the hook shaft. Erratic movement or vibrations cause this tiny electronic device to emit a low-voltage charge said to be similar to that produced by baitfish. Within the E-Chip, a tiny BB contacts a ceramic crystal, which discharges the electric impulse. It requires no batteries and doesn’t wear out. Liddy says field testing has demonstrated advantages over normal spinnerbaits in numbers of bass caught per hour.

Since Shannon Twin-Spins revolutionized fishing in the 1920s, spinnerbaits have been fooling bass and leaving anglers wondering why. With today’s new wrinkles, this magic relationship is sure to endure.